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Monday, July 12, 2010

Sharing the Joy of Creating Android Apps with Everyone

Sharing the joy of building software with someone that doesn’t have an engineering background is hard. Today it got a little easier with App Inventor for Android.

App Inventor for Android is a Google Labs project that makes it possible to create complex Android applications without having to write any code. This is because, instead of writing code, you can visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify behavior.

This helps introduce concepts about logic and programming in a compelling way, without getting lost in syntax and code. And while App Inventor for Android doesn’t have every feature available in the latest Android SDK, it has been used to create some very compelling applications.

For more information about how to participate, take a look at the announcement on the Google Blog.

We look forward to seeing what you think and hearing about your stories. And, yes, the irony of writing a Google Code blog post about avoiding the need to code is not lost on me. :-)

App Inventor for Android is possible due to some significant work done in research on education computing both inside and outside Google. The brainchild of Hal Abelson (visiting faculty), App Inventor for Android is an effort to see if the nature of introductory computing can be changed.

I remember a similar concept (allowing non-programmers to program) when Bill Atkinson created Hypercard for the Macintosh. Ah, those were the days in the 90's. Does anyone else remember having fun with Hypercard? Incidentally, Bill went on to become an excellent photographer and today his work is outstanding. What a talent!